An international conference addressing information technology and communication in health (ITCH) will be held February 26 – March 1, 2015 in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Professor Stephen Hawking’s statement, “we learned to talk, we learned to listen, we unleashed imagination” provides the motivation for this year’s conference. The main conference themes are: Patients Talking The […]

In this guest blog post, member Carly Medosch describes Lisa Adams whom she knows from social media. Lisa Adams was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer and documented her journey in social media. In another post below we describe the media firestorm that was caused by two articles that criticized her efforts. A hashtag was […]

SPM member Kelly Young is one of the most spectacular, potent, world-changing e-patients I’ve ever seen. (See our many posts here about her activism.) Aside from all her work on RAWarrior.com and her Foundation, see how she uses this case to teach. Peer-to-peer healthcare: NOTE: Did you or someone you know participate in a clinical […]

Going public recently with her story of a prophylactic double mastectomy after testing positive for BRCA1 (a gene linked to breast cancer) via an op-ed piece in the New York Times, Angelina Jolie is clearly trying to get the message out that radical choices must sometimes be made in order to increase one’s chances of […]

The latest news story to examine the issue of patient access to implantable cardiac defibrillator data (a variation on the theme of “gimme my damn data”) is an in-depth, Page One Wall Street Journal story featuring Society for Participatory Medicine members Amanda Hubbard and Hugo Campos. They have garnered attention in the past – one […]

From the HIMSS Blog, Adam Bazer with a personal health story where even in a great hospitals the IT is not as connected as can be. We wish your son Ari well, Adam! http://blog.himss.org/2012/06/25/healthcare-it-from-the-view-of-a-worried-father/ The link inside the post about another patient story with Jonathan Atler needs username/password for HIMSS virtual conference.

Neil Versel, a HIT journalist, relates a very touching story of his father’s care at two different hospitals: one was uncoordinated and prone to errors and near misses, another one was quite a good experience. Unfortunately Neil’s father had a rare poorly known disease (MSA) and he died from it. The whole story with details is here: http://www.meaningfulhitnews.com/2012/05/17/mark-versel-1944-2012/ […]

The Journal of Participatory Medicine has published a narrative by Kelly Young entitled “Present, Patient, and Accounted for: How and Why Patients Are Present at Scientific Meetings of the American College of Rheumatology.” Young describes how the Rheumatoid Patient Foundation evolved from her and other e-patients’ efforts to better understand their condition through online research […]

The Journal of Participatory Medicine has just published “The Patient Will See You Now,” a thought-provoking and rather moving narrative by John Krueger, MD. In telling his own story of becoming and maturing as a physician, the author persuasively argues that the key to practicing patient-centered medicine is devoting time to listen to patients’ stories […]

Welcome

Participatory Medicine is a model of cooperative health care that seeks to achieve active involvement by patients, professionals, caregivers, and others across the continuum of care on all issues related to an individual's health. Participatory medicine is an ethical approach to care that also holds promise to improve outcomes, reduce medical errors, increase patient satisfaction and improve the cost of care.